Three Stages of Squint Love
by sweetiepie1019
Summary: Hodgela love. Never got around to the last stage, so read the three that I've got. COMPLETE.
1. Just Hot Sex to Jumping with Style

AN: This is basically my speculation on the thought process that went into the Hodgela relationship. There's no dialogue in this installment, but there'll be dialogue later. I think there'll be four of these things, depending on how I space it and what I decide to include. If I screw up anything, I'm sorry. I've only watched the full episodes from 2x09 to 2x14, plus most of episodes 2x07 and 2x08, and whatever clips YouTube has to offer. Yup – newbie fan! Now, guess what? Reading time! And go –

**Just Hot Sex to Jumping with Style**

Caution.

That was what Jack Hodgins, multi-millionaire, had learned best about love. It's a lesson that you can't avoid learning after you catch your fiancée sleeping around with your best friend. That's the kind of incident that makes you learn other things, too. Like there are other things more important than friends and sex and money. And that you really don't fit into that caviar and champagne crowd, mostly because you care too much, and not just about yourself. And maybe all that conspiracy theory junk your grandpa always went on about aren't as cracked up as you thought they were. Most importantly, though, you learn that if you willingly give your heart to someone, that's all they need to destroy it.

So he had gone from Jack, the smart-ass trust fund baby, to Hodgins, the smart-ass conspiracy theorist Bug Man. He liked himself a hell of a lot better, doing something useful with those shiny doctorates, contributing to humankind and all that. He was more comfortable with who he was. Change was good – even the beard.

But love. No, Hodgins had learned his lesson there. Women are fun. Women are wonderful. But no woman was getting his heart. This earned him his cocky confidence with women. If you're not playing for keeps, there's no reason to be nervous.

When Hodgins started getting feelings for Angela Montenegro, he let them unfold however they wanted. She was hot, and it wasn't like she was looking for commitment. Sure, she was his friend, and that was awkward territory, but he figured, they were two mature adults. They could figure out a system that worked nicely for both of them. And neither of them had anything real to invest, so what the hell?

Hodgins didn't realize, at the time, that Angela was just the person to show him he hadn't learned caution well enough at all. Not by a long shot.

If Angela Montenegro had learned one thing, it was this: men leave.

Her father had started the procession. Then came her string of boyfriends, all of them concerned with one thing – which didn't bother her, particularly. She liked sex as well as the next girl. The thing was, not many of the relationships lasted past the dirty deed. Angela, as she got older, started to get used to it, even like it. If they left before you got emotionally invested, you couldn't get hurt.

And then there was Kirk. Kirk was sweet, and kind, and good to her – and then he was gone. For the first time, Angela had real pain and real regrets over a relationship. Then Goodman, who she thought would stay at the Jeffersonian until his bones became one with the floor, up and left, too. That decided it as far as Angela was concerned. Men were fine for sex and casual friends, and that was all.

She didn't worry too much when she first Hodgins glance her way. Hey, she was patented boho-freestyle-rocker chick, and her Mr. Member, er, Man on the Move. Even if they ever did get past flirting, it'd just be a couple rounds in the sack for an experienced pair like them. No attachments, no pain – no problem.

It didn't take Hodgins long to understand his mistake. He was a pretty smart guy, after all. He'd given his heart away once, albeit eight years ago, and he was far too honest with himself these days to pretend he didn't recognize the signs. The problem was, he didn't realize it until it was far too late. By the time he saw his error, he was most of the way to being head-over-heels for Angela.

He was scared as hell, at first. He was Hodgins now, shameless flirt of a lab rat, not Jack, that idiot who let his heart get stomped on by $8000 Gucci heels. He was done being done in by bottle blondes whose only objective in life was to get a rich husband. The heiresses, the models, the actresses, the leggy airheads, the boob-y airheads, and all those girls with a pretty face and loads of alcohol – none of them got to him. He was above that love crap.

The thing was, as it occurred to him one day, was that this might be the reason why Angela had won him over without him realizing it. He was used to dealing with the brainless, when dating, and the far-too-serious, when at work. Angela had brains and fun, and she knew him. She watched him dig through piles of sludge and bug insides all day, not to mention had little knowledge of his bank account, but she still liked him. She was different from all the others, and he hadn't taken the time to think about how different that made his feelings toward her.

Deciding it was far too late for his heart's safety, Hodgins just went ahead and took the plunge. It was stupid, and it was going to hurt like hell, but he was doing it all the same.

Though damned if he wasn't going to do it with style.

Falling for Hodgins was far too easy. It was a tiny sidestep from thinking of him as something more than her dorky work friend to idly drawing sketches of his face instead of skull's, and not much of a hop from there to thinking about what it'd be like to having a real relationship for the first time, and it was really only a couple days and a couple drinks after that when she realized that Hodgins was her best bet for a real relationship. He was funny, smart, and he kept up. Not to mention those eyes of his.

Just thinking that made her jumpy around him. Especially since she could see him thinking it, too. Day by day, it became harder to hold normal conversations with him. And she was getting distracted. And not just from cases – from art. No guy distracted her from art. She even noticed how distracted he was getting from bugs – Hodgins! Distracted from bugs! By her!

Angela's panic alarm was practically screaming in her head. Men don't get close. Men are only good for casual friends. Men are only good for casual friends and good sex. Hodgins would probably be great sex ... no, focus. Men leave. Men always, always, always leave.

The worst part was, Hodgins was probably the closest guy friend she'd ever had. If anything happened with them, and it didn't work out, she wasn't just going to lose a friend. She wasn't just going to have an awkward work environment. She was losing the only person she could talk to about stuff with a male perspective. Seriously, who was going to replace him? Booth? _Zack?_ Oh, God. She couldn't resort to Zack.

Things would never work between them. They were too different in all the ways that mattered, and too similar in all the ways they shouldn't be. Angela decided that, simply put, this could not happen.

Of course she slipped up when he asked her out. The way he'd done it ... it was just so Hodgins. Besides, she'd thought she'd talked herself down from the cliff well over a month ago, and that maybe now she could take another stab at the "just hot sex" version of their relationship. But when he kissed her, all the things she'd felt about him, all the stuff she was afraid, came crashing down on her.

So she cut it off early. She hurt them both at the beginning rather than watch him take off in the end.

AN: So it goes through 2x07. Basically, from now on, I should know more of what I'm talking about. Again, sorry if I screwed anything up. Take pity on the little newbie. She's trying as hard as she can.

Love? Hate? Please review!


	2. Time Underground Gives Second Chances

AN: Sorry this took a while to get up. It's really long. Plus, I'm so very, very, very busy lately. I'll deal with reviews next installment, but thanks to all that gave them!

Disclaimer: I forgot about this before, so here goes. If I owned Bones, it would be two hours long – one hour for cases, fifteen minutes for Zack, fourteen minutes for BB interactions, one minute for Cam to say something slightly charming, and a half hour for Hodgela. Plus, once a month, DB and TJ Thyne would have to perform an episode without any shirts on.

**Some Time Underground Gives Second Chances**

Hodgins felt that he handled the whole Angela situation well. Really well. Considering the fact that she had basically pulverized his heart with her stylish boho-chic heels, he thought he was acting admirably. Yeah, he never stayed in the same room alone with her anymore. But other than that, he was behaving normally. He pulled off jokes, like the Godfather thing, when she was sitting literally three feet away from him. He did his job as well as always. He was determined to prove to her that he could handle her rejection and they could still work together. If he showed her that, maybe he'd have another shot. Convince her that they could make it work at work.

He blew it, of course. He got caught in an embarrassing moment, and he got flustered. And she called him out. He knew, at that moment, that she knew. She knew she hurt him, and that he was only acting like he was ok to get her back. So that was the end of this whole thing with her. Meaning, as far as he was concerned, it was Scotch time.

He ran down to the basement to catch Brennan before she left. And then everything was black.

He woke up to dark and pain and panic. His brain wasn't working. His brain always worked. And his legs were throbbing.

The Grave Digger. The Grave Digger had buried him. He was alive in his own grave.

He tried so hard to think, put his PhD brain to the test, but he couldn't think with his legs shooting pain through him on an irregular basis. Of course Brennan, whose legs were just fine and whose brain was working at its usual admirable pace, had a solution for that. A solution that scared the hell out of him.

It occurred to Hodgins that he might die, and Brennan might live because of the extra air. He was happy for her. She had a brother. Hodgins didn't have any family. No one to miss him, except Brennan and Zack. Booth and Cam, too, probably. Goodman, once he heard. Fred, the guy who opened his gate, and Fred's wife Jan.

And Angela. He should probably write a note or something, for Angela. So that whole "King of the Lab" bit wouldn't be the last thing she remembered of him.

It took him about twenty seconds to write the note, and it wasn't exactly brilliant. Then again, how many of the victims he'd seen had a chance to say goodbye? Did they all have Angela's they would've written notes to, if they'd known? Jesus. Near-death was turning him into a friggin' sap.

As he clenched onto either side of his seat, he decided to think about something good. Like Angela. Angela working. Angela smiling. Kissing Angela. Loving Angela. He'd never told Angela he loved her. He'd never told anyone he loved her.

He spit out the cloth.

"I'm nuts about Angela. Over the moon. Stupid in love. That's why I bought her that – that crazy expensive perfume. Man gives you a bottle of perfume like that, it says – it says 'I love you.'"

He didn't care that Brennan was staring at him like she was going to cry. He didn't care that he was already crying. He didn't care how much he was going to regret this conversation if they survived this.

"There. I said it out loud."

He stuffed the cloth back in his mouth, grabbed the handholds, and nodded tensely. He screamed like hell as the knife ripped through his skin. And then he was out. Again.

Honestly, Angela had never thought she'd be much use at the Jeffersonian. An artist among scientists? What good would she do? She'd been wrong, of course. In her time there, she'd help solve hundreds of cases, and helped just as many people by catching the perp.

But now ... now Brennan and Hodgins were buried alive, and she was totally and completely useless. Eight million dollars. She would have sold everything she owned, taken all the money from her account, auctioned off the Angelator, and still she couldn't imagine eight million dollars. She refused to imagine what would happen without it. She'd heard Zack and Cam talking about one of the kids puncturing himself with a pen or something, trying to help the other live. All that blood in the basement, all of it belonging to Hodgins'. Under all his crap, Hodgins was the white knight type at heart. If he thought his injuries were too much, he might ... God, she needed him to practical scientist Hodgins that found a way to make more air, and not the Hodgins that ... God, she needed him to be practical.

"Hodgins sends me lots of notes ... We don't need evidence, we need millions of dollars."

After storming off from Cam, she dried her tears in her office. Crying wasn't helping anybody. Not that she could help anyway. Maybe she could run to Hodgins' place and take something. Zack said Hodgins had serious cash. Why hadn't she known that? She'd known he was rich, sure, but third-largest cooperation rich? Besides, she didn't even know where he lived.

The clock on the wall was unforgiving. For every second it counted down, Angela freaked out more. Losing her best friend was horrible. Losing Hodgins, though, was almost worse. She knew Brennan. She spent time with Brennan. If Brennan died, she'd know exactly how Angela felt about her. Hodgins ... Hodgins was Kirk all over again, but, again, worse. Hodgins had no idea she'd ever seen him as more than a friend. Hodgins had no idea that the reason she pushed him away was the way he made her crazy. About him. The last memory Hodgins had of her was her telling him not to be so weird. If she saw him again – when she saw him again – she was going to tell him that weird was the new sexy.

"Brennan is my best friend. And Hodgins ... Hodgins ..."

Her friend? No. Her boyfriend? Unfortunately not. The guy she liked that liked her back whose heart she broke by trying to protect her own? Yup. That was it.

Screw it. If she got a second chance, she wasn't going to let herself have regrets.

And then, finally, Zack was shouting out coordinates, and they were boarding a helicopter. She shredded about five random business cards from her pocket into dust on the flight there. Damn her legs and fingers for shaking that way.

Angela had never seen anything more beautiful than that cloud of dust spiraling from beneath the cliff. Cam, Zack, and half the team left before she shook the shock and sprinted down the hill, but only Booth beat her to that spot.

"Jack ... C'mon ..."

As much as her stomach unknotted at the sight of Brennan, the shaking only stopped when she saw the top of a shaggy head of curls.

She had no idea what he said to her. She could only see the intensity in his eyes when he said it. Hodgins was staring right at her again. She hadn't lost him. She was so giddy she kissed him, right on cracked and dirt-streaked lips, before deciding that she should probably wait until he'd taken a few breaths of fresh air, and wasn't lying on a pile of blown-up mud, before she started making out with him.

It occurred to her, as she smoothed back those curls, touching his face over and over again to prove that he was still alive, that he was the first man to leave and actually come back.

When Hodgins woke up, his brain was working. And it didn't stop working from the moment he helped hot-wire the cell phone to the moment before the explosion. He only allowed himself to feel three times in the next few hours. Once when he got pissed off at the Grave Digger. Once when he hugged Brennan. And once, just before he brought the wires together, when he thought of Angela.

Then he was aboveground, and Angela was there. He had no idea, really, what exactly he tried to say to her. It didn't matter, because she kissed him, soil-covered and all.

The trip to the hospital was a blur of euphoria – fresh air, blue skies, and lots and lots being alive and above ground. Then he was in a sterilized white room, an IV in his arm and large bandage on his leg. Finally, he could stop and analyze the situation. He had just been buried alive by someone who was still out there. His options were to stay in this room, go home, or sneak over to the Jeffersonian. Staying in this room meant seeing images of the inside of the car playing in his head over and over until the doctors let his friends in. He wasn't ready to deal with people. Especially Angela. Going home meant going to an empty house, with nothing to do but remember.

Hodgins waited until his nurse was busy at the front desk before jacking the pair of crutches she's left by the door and swinging his way around the waiting room where Brennan, Zack, and Angela were all sitting, down the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the bus station.

He'd been working on the bumper sticker for nearly an hour in the darkened lab when Angela showed up, clutching one of the fuzziest cutesy stuffed bears he'd ever seen in his life. She looked torn between pissed off and sympathetic. "I went to visit you at the hospital. I brought this."

"They let me go home." Ah. Smooth.

Angela, as always, wasn't buying his bullshit. "No, they didn't. You left without being discharged. You stole crutches, which I had to pay for."

He mumbled something about drugs, mostly hoping she'd give up and go. He needed to work. He needed to keep his brain busy.

"Could you look at me?" Clearly, she wasn't going anywhere. Hodgins looked at her defiantly. She stared back in her patented I-know-what's-best-for-you-sweetie sort of way. "You were buried alive. You were operated on without an anesthetic. You were pumped full of drugs. You really should be lying down."

Hodgins hadn't wanted to talk to Angela. He had wanted to be alone. And this was why. He could feel himself breaking down even as spoke to her. "He's out there, Angela. He buries people alive. I have to catch him. If I can figure out the exact alloy of aluminum, then maybe I could – maybe we could ... Plus the bit of – of bumper sticker that Brennan found in my leg ..."

"We're going to catch him, okay? I promise you. We'll start tomorrow. All of us, together."

"I can't sleep." If he was going to break down, he might as well go the whole way. She already thought he was weird, anyway. And maybe if she understood, she'd just let him stay and work this.

Angela crinkled her brow at him. "I thought they gave you something for that."

He took a deep breath. "No. I mean, I'm afraid. That when I close my eyes ... when I open them, I'll be back in that car. Buried. Running out of air."

He could see her processing as felt a tear run down to his beard. Well, he'd already lost his dignity to her. He could just blame it on the drugs later.

"Okay. Then you should come home with me."

Never before had Hodgins been that shocked about something, including the time that packaging girl had picked Angela to go on a date with. His voice cracked as he asked, in a surge of brilliance, "What?"

She nodded. "When you open your eyes, I'll be there."

That meant things, so many things ... Hodgins was simply not capable of wrapping his around what she was saying with that many pills in him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." Time to lighten the mood, somehow. "Y'know, I'm good for that crutch money."

Her laugh was almost like a release of nervous relief; his was watery and forced. Still, it was like some sort of barrier had come down between them. She reached out to him and put her hand onto his cheek, and he leaned into it. He felt something loosen itself inside of him. Finally, the images of a tiny, cramped car stopped playing in front of his eyes. They were all replaced by Angela.

Angela bought Hodgins a teddy bear at the hospital gift shop. She knew, of course, that he'd hate it. But she was far too giddy to care. She was sitting next to Brennan, her best friend's hand in her own, the bear propped up perkily in her lap, just down the hall from a perfectly healthy Hodgins, who she'd be able to see in a few minutes. There wasn't anything that she wasn't happy about at that moment.

A nurse approached, looking kind of sheepish. "You're waiting to see Dr. Hodgins, right?"

Angela sat up straight so fast the plush bear plopped to the floor in front of her. "Yeah. What's going on?"

The nurse sighed. "I went to check up on him, and he was gone. People at the desk saw him hobbling out of here forty-five minutes ago."

Zack's eyebrows drew together. "Hodgins left?"

The nurse nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry. We didn't exactly think that a PhD with a bum leg and three friends in the lobby was a flight risk."

Brennan smiled at her. "It's all right. You can't stop Hodgins when he's determined." She looked over at Angela and Zack. "Where do you think he went?"

Angela snapped out of the trance she'd been in since the word "gone." She had waited for him all this time and he thought he was getting away? Nuh-uh. "Look, you two go home. Get some rest. I'm think I know where he is. I'll get him."

The nurse, looking even more sheepish, spoke up. "Um, there's one more thing."

Angela was pissed off the entire drive to the Jeffersonian. He left? He left? She kissed him, and he left her waiting in a smelly hospital lobby with a bill for a stolen pair of crutches. Didn't he know how worried she'd been? Didn't he know they needed to talk? Apparently not, sneaking off to sleep in the Jeffersonian like that. It was only logical. He couldn't get to his own house, not with his leg like it was, and she couldn't imagine him taking a cab all the way to Maryland. So he'd decided to stay at the Jeffersonian, and probably sleep on her couch. He didn't want to deal with her, so he just left. He left.

She went into the Jeffersonian, guns blazing. And was stopped in her tracks.

Hodgins wasn't sleeping. He was examining something through a microscope, and writing down observations with a shaking hand, all under a fairly small light. It hit Angela then that Hodgins was working his own case.

He had always looked taller than he was to her, his complete confidence adding a couple inches. Now he looked really, really small. Small and frightened. She could feel herself literally melting.

When he fell apart in front of her, she realized she was seeing something he'd probably never let anyone else see. She wouldn't even have seen it, after what she'd done, if he still weren't a little fuzzy from the drugs. She knew that if she was going to make them into something, take this second chance, she was going to have to do something just as bold. Which is when she invited him to stay. With her.

The car ride to her house was comfortably silent. All the windows were rolled down so Hodgins could breathe in the fresh air, which he did, often and with a little exaggeration to make Angela laugh. His fingers played against the rubber of his window, obviously relishing the clean touch of the night wind.

A few minutes after leaving the Jeffersonian, Hodgins breathed in a little too deeply and ended up coughing a bit, making them both laugh. As she chuckled, Angela put her hand on the vestibule between them. After what seemed like hours to her, Hodgins lightly wrapped his fingers around hers.

They didn't really talk when they reached her apartment. She pointed out a couple things, he admired a couple things. She found some sweatpants that looked like they wouldn't dwarf Hodgins, and left to change into something suitably adorable in her bathroom.

When she came back, she nearly had to turn right back around. Hodgins was standing by the window, which he'd opened a crack, in the sweatpants she'd given him and a T-shirt. It wasn't an inherently sexy sight, but it made her pulse race a little. Every instinct told her to run. That she was in too deep.

Instead, she crossed the room to stand next to him. He finally noticed her and turned, eyebrows raised. Angela reached out and cupped his face again. His eyes searched her face for a moment. Then his hands were pulling at the back of her neck, and his mouth was on hers.

The kisses were slow and soft. It was almost as if they were apologizing to each other, for whatever stupid things they had done before. They stopped after only a few minutes, but Angela's lips still buzzed a little bit. And she had some things to say to anyone who objected to kissing people with beards.

That night, Angela fell asleep in Hodgins arms, her own meeting at his back. Her head was buried in his chest, comforted by the feel of his deep breathing and the clean smell of him.

AN: Yeah, I assumed some things about 2x09 in there. We shall go with it. This is officially the longest chapter I've ever written for any fanfic, being well over 3000 words and almost six pages. I really hoped this works. I'm very tired and not entirely sure.

Love? Hate? Review, my darlings. Review!


	3. Making Steps, Slowly but Surely

AN: I'm very behind, so I'm just going to go right for it. I'll take care of the anonymous reviews from all the chapters during the last one.

Disclaimer: The fact that Hodgins' was barely in the last episode pretty much indicates I have no ownership of Bones whatsoever.

**Taking Steps, Slowly but Surely**

Angela had never been ignored by a guy so effectively until Hodgins decided to ignore her.

He was gone before she woke up the day after the Grave Digger Incident (GDI, in her head, for short). For the next couple of days, he made disappearing an art. As long as there were other people in the room, he acted like the same cocky, dorky jackass he'd always been – but as soon as it looked like they might end up alone together, he was at the other end of the Jeffersonian. She would have been impressed, under any other circumstances. She was a very persistent person. Ignoring her was pretty difficult.

She'd already screwed up with Hodgins. He'd asked her out, and she'd hesitated. They'd gone out, and she'd dumped him. And now he was the one running. Well, she'd decided she'd wanted him. She was just going to have to do a little fighting for him now.

Which was why, after three days of being avoided like Mel Gibson by anyone of Jewish decent, she caught him on the way out of the Jeffersonian. She'd been hanging out by his car for nearly two hours by the time he showed up, but she tried her best to play it off as if she'd been there for just a few minutes. "Saw your car on the way out," she commented as casually as she could, gesturing backwards in the direction of his toy car.

Hodgins grinned at her a little. "And you decided it needed a hood ornament? I don't know. You're going to be hard to tie down."

Double entendres. Nice. "You're avoiding me." She folded her arms slowly, for that "Don't think you can fool me" sort of effect.

"Why would you think that?" Hodgins raised his eyebrows, for that "This conversation is barely interesting enough for me" sort of effect.

Angela tilted her head. "Are you seriously denying it?" Hodgins merely shrugged. "I haven't been alone in a room with you in days. You detailed an entire crime scene with me and Zack, and you didn't actually direct one sentence to me." She gestured wildly at the space between them. "You are twenty feet away from me right now, having this conversation." She took a deep breath, shook her head to resettle her hair, and gave him her patented stare. "What are you trying to do, Hodgins?"

He laughed at her. "I wasn't denying it. Missed me much?"

Officially, he was the most aggravating man on the planet. Including politicians, lawyers, and anyone who said "perf" instead of "perfect." Angela was practically about to explode. She attempted to remain calm. "Hodgins. Come on. You have to tell me what's happening."

She had almost forgotten how piercing his gaze was when he looked directly at her. She was reminded forcibly as his eyes abruptly met hers. "I was giving you time."

"Time for what?" She was almost pleading with him.

He sighed. "Time to back out, Angela. Time to change your mind."

The breath spilled right out of her with a slightly ashamed, "Oh."

"Yeah."

She really wished he weren't looking at her so openly. "Um, thanks. I guess."

They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Then he nodded at his car. "I'm gonna need that, you know."

"Oh. Yeah." Angela slid down off the hood, and backed up a bit. Hodgins started to walk past her. And her brain finally caught up with the rest of her. Her arm shot out to catch him. He looked at her, those amazingly blue, blue eyes questioning. She took a deep breath. "I don't need time."

A hesitant grin began to split Hodgins face in half. "Really?"

It was contagious. She couldn't help grinning back. "Really."

He was leaning in. She could see he was about to lean in. They would have been making out in the parking lot, on his car, or in his car, in just a few seconds. They would have, of course, if Zack hadn't shown up just then.

"Hey." Zack looked uncomfortable. But then, Zack always looked uncomfortable.

Hodgins hesitated for a moment, looking at her. Then he sighed a little, shook his head, and started around to the other side of the car.

Angela stood still for a minute. She had missed an opportunity. She could practically see it waving good-bye as it passed her. She nodded her head in acceptance, and turned to go.

"Angela." She whipped back around so fast her neck hurt. Hodgins was smiling at her. "What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?"

Of all the stupid, cliché, un-Angela-like things to happen. Her heart literally skipped a beat. It was years of nonchalant, three-dates-and-run Angela that kept her from doing more than smiling back and replying, very smoothly, "Going to the diner with you."

He didn't answer, unless smiling a bit wider counted.

Zack's head poked out of his window. "So ... you two are talking again?"

Angela twiddled her fingers at him. "Bye, Zack."

Zack squinted at her. "Wait. What's going on? Are you two ... ?"

Hodgins rolled his eyes and ducked into his car. "Shut up, Zack."

"But I want to ..." Angela didn't hear the end of his sentence as Hodgins drove off, but she was way too excited to care.

She hadn't screwed it up. She still had a shot at Hodgins.

Hodgins had snuck out of a lot of beds. He wouldn't have ever guessed, though, that he'd do it to Angela. But when he woke up with her next to him, her arm still tucked snugly under his neck, he suddenly knew he couldn't talk to her just now. She'd say that it had been a mistake. She'd say that she was just emotional. She'd say it was a good thing they never actually slept together, huh? Then the word "friends" would crop up, and that would just be that. They'd be done, and he'd still be crazy in love with a girl he couldn't pin down.

That was not a scenario he was ready to confront. Not when he still felt the slight ache in his leg where Brennan had performed surgery on his leg Civil War, bite-the-bullet style. So he had slipped out of the bed, redressed in a silent frenzy, and was slowly closing the door of her apartment when he heard her murmur his name from her room.

For once in his life, Hodgins was seriously glad that he was small. If he was built like Booth, it would've been seriously hard to avoid Angela the way he had. For three days, he'd duck behind doors, crouch behind his desk, and flatten himself against walls as soon as he saw Angela coming towards him. There was a particularly interesting moment when he ran into Cam's office while Cam was still in it. To her credit, she did nothing more than grin wickedly at him before continuing to read the case file in her hand.

After three days of this, he'd decided he was ready for it. Maybe when she said "friends," he'd just nod and smile, instead of ripping out of all of his hair, running up the stairs to the top of the lab, and taking a flying leap off. He felt that this might be a bit melodramatic and cliché. Which is why he had to remind himself three or four times that he had to use his car to get home before he was able to come out of the stairway exit and walk up to Angela.

She didn't say "friends." And if Zack hadn't interrupted, he probably would've shown exactly how the fact that she hadn't made him feel. It wasn't until they were out of the garage the impact of having a date the next day with Angela hit him. It wasn't until he was halfway home, and Zack had asked him a thousand questions that he refused to answer, until Hodgins could stop grinning.

Lunch was at the diner, because he didn't feel like he should make another big deal about a date. He caught himself thinking that it was almost too easy – talking, laughing, and her hand sliding into his across the table halfway through, and staying there.

They were still laughing and arguing playfully when they wandered through the front doors of the Jeffersonian. "You can't seriously want Gone with the Wind should be number one on the list of America's best movies."

"Oh, come on. 'Frankly, dear, I don't give a damn.' It's a classic."

Hodgins made a face as they walked past his desk towards Angela's office. "Better than Citizen Kane? Better than The Godfather? No way, baby."

Angela tuned to face him as they walked through her office door. "Rhett and Scarlet are the most romantic couple in any movie, ever."

"Marlon Brando is the coolest mofia leader, ever." Hodgins tilted his head and placed his feet in his patented defiant stance.

Angela cracked up, shaking her head at him. "God, you're such a romantic. I'm gonna grab the video footage from the woods murder. I'll see you later?"

Hodgins grinned a little. "Yeah. I have to test some of the mineral composition on the gloves, anyway." He held her eyes for a moment, then turned to leave. He wasn't going to press forward if she wasn't ready.

"Hey, Hodgins." He stopped and turned back to see Angela biting her lip nervously. Before he could so much as blink, she had crossed the room, grabbed the back of his neck, and covered his mouth with her own.

But if she wanted to press forward, that was just fine with him.

Angela had never had music on that loud before in her life. Well, not at work, at least. But she was caught between nerves of what was going on with her and Hodgins and horror for the images on the screen in front of her, and she needed to something to drown out the thoughts. And the screams.

She bounced between trying to notate the video and thinking about Hodgins. Every time she thought about him, it was like she started to glow inside a little bit. Which was just a really weird feeling, and one she wasn't used to, and it brought up all those insecure feelings, and ... and it made her start babbling in her own head. So she'd watch the footage. That made her feel disgusted and depressed and horrible. So then she'd think about Hodgins some more. And then she'd be happy, and then she'd freak out, and then she'd pay attention to the video, and then ...

The hand on her shoulder made her nearly explode from everything going on in her head in combination with the creeping chills she was getting from the videos. And when she whipped around in terror, who was standing there but Hodgins? And, of course, this only made her blood pump faster. When she asked if he were trying to kill her, she'd never meant it so literally.

Her pulse had just begun to slow down when he mentioned the trees. "We have to go through the videos again?" Her voice cracked a little bit. She really didn't notice as she stared up at Hodgins in horror.

"Don't worry, I'm right here for you." The way he said it was kind of condescending, but also kind of sweet, and, as soon as the video began to replay, kind of necessary. As the first scream rang out, Angela's hands clamped onto Hodgins' wrist on impulse. She decided she had the pretty nice impulses when his hand slid onto her shoulder, and his head lowered towards hers a bit more.

Of course, the state of glow-y, new feeling-ness didn't last very long. No longer distracted by thoughts of Hodgins, now that he was in the room with her, half perched on her chair and holding her rather firmly in one arm, she was forced to pay attention to the screen in front of her. As the tape went on, she felt more and more like whimpering like an abandoned puppy. When the worst part of tape started to come around, she buried her face into Hodgins shoulder, ignoring his teasing, and felt amazingly relieved when she caught sight of the trees in time to forego the fresh batches of screaming.

The feeling of being close to vomiting barely registered anymore by the time Booth and Bones came in to look at the mystery man she'd picked out. The thought of actually watching any more of the video without Hodgins made her think she might, in fact, puke, as Booth asked Hodgins why he was still there.

"Because I want him here," she snapped at the computer screen, blushing a little. Confessing that was definitely a fair price for Hodgins staying. She kept her eyes forward, but she could almost feel Hodgins' staring at her.

It was almost midnight when Angela began to case the last of the videos. She looked over at poor Hodgins, who looked exhausted, no matter how adorably cocky he was acting. She'd decided that she was definitely asking to spend the night. It was about time, as far as she was concerned. She was leading up to it in fact, when Hodgins wandered over and pointed out the blob on the screen. "It could be a ... a reflection on the screen," she suggested, stammering.

"Or moonlight." It surprised her that Hodgins seemed a little spooked.

"Moonlight. That sounds right. Can I stay at your place tonight?" It just slipped out before she could think about it.

"Sure." Hodgins' grin practically split his face in half. She probably would have the same look on her face, if she wasn't somewhat afraid that a headless three hundred year-old witch was going to reach through her computer screen at any given moment. She was a calm, rational adult, but she was allowed to be creeped out by floating blobs if they happened to be connected to a crime scene and extremely coincidental.

Angela forgot about scary blobs, though, when she and Hodgins had managed to ditch Zack and were making out in the foyer, and up the stairs, and in his room, and ...

AN: I've deviated from the norm with this chapter and left out the last bit from Hodgins' POV. I needed to get this out tonight so I could give y'all some time to read before the new episode came out. Perhaps I will give Hodgins' his due time next chapter. Sorry this took so long to get out. I've just had the craziest past couple of weeks. Plus, this chapter gave me some trouble, as I had no transcript nor any clips of 2x10, and therefore agonized over timing and dialogue and stuff. And writing original dialogue for these two took me a bit, being new to the fandom and all. Still, hope you enjoy.

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